Book Reviews

Thomas Merton. A Searrhfar Solitude: Plfrslfing the Monk 's Tme Ufa. Ed. with Introduction by Lawrence S. Cunningham. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996) pp.406, £19.99. ISBN 0-06-065478-3.

Thomas Merton. Tuming Toward the World: The PitYJtal Years. Ed. with Introduction by Vic tor A. Kramer. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996) pp.360, £19.99. ISBN 0-06-065480-5.

Lnst year saw the appearance of the third and fourth volwnes of the seven projected volwnes of l\lerton's complete journals. Volumes one and two (reviewed in Tht Merton Joumalvol.3 no.2) covered l\Ierton's life from his pre-monastic years in New York, through to his entry to Gethsemani in 1941 and concluded at the same point as his previously published journal Tht Sign ofJonas, in the swnrner of 1952. Volwne three of the complete journals - A S tan-h far Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's Tmt Lift, edited by Lawrence S. Cunningham - follows on from where volwne two ended with an entry dated July 25, 1952 and concludes in May 1960. 1l1e title given to this volume does not reflect the turbulence Merton was experiencing in the years covered by this journal. "Searching for Solitude" and "Pursuing the Monk's True Life" were not easy tasks for Thomas Merton. In The Sign ofJonas l\lerton battles \vi th his dual vocations of being a solitary and a writer and, by tile end of the journal, having discovered solitude both through writing and through his work as Master of Scholastics, the impression Merton gives in his m:t.sterful epilogue to Jonas, "Fire Watch, July 4, 1952", is that his problems ove r his vocation have been resolved. As Michael Mott and William Shannon have made clear in tlleir biographies of Merton this was certainly not true. As Shannon notes, "Tht Sign of Jonas ends when llie struggle is just beginning to warm up" 1 for Merton's "most serious crisis of stability yet" 2 and this is where the third volume of journals begins. Beginning with July 1952 tllis volume goes up to !\larch 1953 where there is a break up until .July 17, 1956 when llie journal begins again. Cunningham provides no explanation for llie missing three years simply stating Merton "kept rather brief journal entries in the last months of 1952 and in 1953, \vi th a hiatus in 1954-1955" (xiii) and remarking that in this period l\ferton gave up his position as !\laster of Scholastics to become !\faster of Novices. l\fy major criticism of this

57 volume is that no attempt at an explanation is provided for this hiatus. Brother mentality" in the community and swept away some of the privileges Dom James Patrick l lart, General Editor of these jo urnals, has pointed out elsewhere that the had arranged to provide i\lerton with more solitude. This led to i\lerton's policy decision was made to publish i\ lerton's journals in their entirety and that the application fo r a transitus to the Camaldolese in June 1955. As i\ierton looked into publishers did no t \vish them to have more than the bare minimum in the way of the possibility of finding solitude away from Gethsemani Dom James was seeking footnotes so as to avoid them appearing like "a German doctoral dissertation with permission for i\ierton to lead a more solitary life at Gethsemani. Paradoxically mo re footnotes than text." 3 The lack of comment on i\lerton's hiatus o f the mid when Dom J a.mes had obtained permission for i\lerton to become a hermit in a fifties is taking this policy to an extreme and does not help the reader. fire tower on the monastery's land i\ierton offered himself as novice master. Fro m biographies of i\lerton it is possible to fill in the events o f these Following o n from this crisis there followed a period of stability fo r Merton until "missing years" and to find the reason for the hiatus. In early 1953 i\ lerto n agreed in 1958 he began actively looking into opportunities once again to become a hermit to a request of Gabriel Sorta.is, Abbot General of the Cistercian Order, that he and in November 1959 he applied for an exclaustration to go to Me xico to become cease keeping a joumal 4 and the lack of journal writings from 1953 through to 1956 a hermit near the Benedic tine monastery of Cuernavaca. When i\ lerto n's request suggests that Merton was obeying Sortais's wishes. was tumed down he accepted the decision \vith "relief that at last the problem had In the fifties Merton experienced three major periods of instability, two been settled" (358) and writes the next day of "a very great peace and gratitude at of these, in 1953 and 1959 are covered in A Sean-h for Solitude the o ther, from 1955 kno\ving that 1 have really, at last, found my definite place and that I have no falls into the period when i\lerton was not keeping a journal but it can be clearly further need to look, to seek, except in my own heart." (360) As with i\lerton's traced in Mo tt's biography. These periods o f instability show i\!erton's struggle earlier crises of stability this crisis led to changes in his position at Gethsemani. In with his vocation and with self doubt, struggles which are no t found in Conjectum i\iarch 1960 i\ lerton was given a quiet cell of his own in the monastery and plans of a Glfifty ~mlers The instability Merton writes o f in his own life is an instability were also begun for a cinder block building, originally to be built for ecumenical which has come to charac terise the final decades o f this century. i\lerton's writing confe rences, that would later become Merton's hermitage. in this journal serve as a witness to the qualities which sustained him through these i\lerton's relentless "search for solitude" is central to this third volwne o f profound periods o f instability, especially a deep sense o f obedience and a his journals. O ther themes found in the earlier two volumes are present as well as commitment to his search for God and for truth. many new themes. A good part of Conjecl11rts of a Glfif!y BystanderwA.s written in the In the late summer o f 1952 Merton mentions three options he is period covered by A Searrh f or So/it11de and so the development of Merton's thought considering as possibilities for greater solitude - the Carthusians, the Camaldolese can be seen through comparing this journal with Conjectum. Events and themes or the possibility of a separate scholasticate. As i\lerton's crises in The Sign ofJ onas which would later be worked up for inclusion in Conjectum are here in their raw had led to opportunities for greater solitude at Gethseman.i - the rare book vault, state. In particular Merton's expanding horizons over the latter years of this journal position of forester, the attic o f the barn - so, in response to his 1952 crisis Dom are striking. As Merton searched for a solitary life he was also asking questions James allowed Merton to use a disused toolshed in the Gethsemani woods for about the monk's relationship to the world, realising that his solitary vocation was limited periods of time. Merton called the toolshed St. Anne's and his reaction to not merely "cuddling in self-love" (298) but involved a " responsibility to be in all it is reminiscen t to his discovery of places he associated \vith solitude in Jonas reality a peacemaker in the wo rld." (149) These years also saw the great expansion writing that "St Anne's is what I have been waiting fo r and looking for all my life" in i\lerton's correspondence and the influence o f his correspondents upon him is adding "everything that was ever real in me has come back to life in this doorway profound. O f particular note in this journal is i\lerton's reflections on his contac t wide open to the sky!" (32) \vith Boris Pasternak and his correspondence with Latin American writers. Merton's second major crisis of the fifties began in the early summer of i\lerton's correspondence has been published elsewhere but the shockwaves from 1955 and, though not covered in A Sean-hfor Solitude, it is worth mentioning briefly it permeate the second half of this journal. Reflecting on the effe ct of this in this review as it highligh ts a pattern in i\!erton's life, a pattern very evident in this correspondence upon him i\lerton writes: volume of i\ierton's journals. A visiting abbot had compl:iined of a "hermit

58 59 I .ike Dick \X1hittington turning again at the sound of Bow bells, monastery such as giving a weekly conference to interested members of the because London was his life and vocation and fortune. I have community. "turned again" at the voice of the Andes and of the Sertao and The years covered in this journal are well descnbed as pivo tal years for o f the Pampas and of Brazil. ( 169) i\ierton - much was coming to fruit for him as Kramer points out in his introduction. But underneath this there is a new found sense of stability, a stability Me rto n concludes this journal saying "1 know you are leading me, and therefore which is rooted in Merton's time in solitude, especially at the hermitage and in the there is no wnfod n-ith anyone. Nor can there be" (394) and ye t, having accompanied Gethsemani woods. him on his "search for solitude" and his pursuit of "the monk's true life" through Merton's expanding horizons are cleady evident in this volume. His these pages, having shared with i\lerton his struggles and his solaces, we know all thinking on the monks relationship to the world along with his thinking on issues too well that his search will continue along with his struggles. such as war, nuclear weapons and racial issues is found throughout this volume and The fourth volume of i\1erton's journals - T11mi11g To111ard the World: The illustrates the manner in which his thought regarding these and o ther issues Pivola/Yecm, edited by Victor A Kramer - covers the period from May 1960 when developed. Writing in November 1961 i\lerton says: Volume Three ended up until the end of.July 1963. In his introduction Kramer descobes this volume as " the basic documentary record of li\lerton's] movement Yesterday afternoon at the hermitage, surely a decisive clarity from cloister toward world, from Novice Master to hermit, and from ironic critic came. That I must definitely commit myself to opposition to, of culture to compassionate singer of praise." (xixJ and non-cooperation \vith, nuclear war. (182) After the crises of stability in volume three T11mi11g Toward /ht World is a radically different journal. At the end of A Searr:h far So/i/11de Merton vows to "find From this period Merton's most outspoken writings on issues of war and peace solitude outside geography." In volume four we find i\1erton no longer searching developed , including the "Cold War Letter". In many of the areas i\lerton was for solitude elsewhere but finding it where he is, "instead of making plans, exploring he WilS ahead of his time. Much of his thought on monasticism, anticipating and doing other futile things, I am really going to simplify my own life ecumenism, inter-faith dialogue, war and peace, race, and environmental issues was here" (27) and i\lerton ask for the mercy he feels he needs to do this: not current in church circles at the time and only began coming into fashion in the years after the opening up of the church which came \vith the Second Vatican Have mercy on my darkness, my weakness, my confusion. Council. Have mercy on my infidelity, my cowardice, my turning about An interesting insight to i\lerton can be gained through looking at the in circles, my wandering, my evasions. 1 do not ask anything index for this volume. The index is by no means completely comprehensive and, but such mercy, always, in everything, mercy. (28) this is true for other volumes of the complete journals as well, cannot be relied upon in ways that scholars might \vish. But the index still illustrates the range of - a mercy which had frequently been a theme over the course of i\lerton's Merton's interests and thought in the early sixties and it is hard to comprehend the monastic life. extent of it. i\ferton reaches beyond purely the boundaries of east and west or The i\lount Olivet Hermitage provided i\lerton \vith the opportunity for north and south and reaches out to all times and places. At one point he refers to greater solitude even though tl1e time he was allowed to spend there was only very the fundamental thought of people of other ages and other countries citing "Latin limited. Over the course of this journal Merton is allowed to spend greater and America - G reek Patristic period - i\tt. Athos - Confucian China - T'ang dynasty - greater amounts of time at the hermitage but it is not until the swnmer of 1965 that Pre-Socratic Greece" and laments his inability "of ever beginning truly to know and he is finally allowro to resign his position as novice master and become a full-time understand, to communicate with these pasts and these distances" ye t fe eling a hermit and, even then, i\lerton is obliged to keep up certain commitments in the "sense of obligation to do so, to Jive them and combine them in myself, to absorb, to digest, to 'remember."' (42) In passages such as this we can see the background

60 61 to the work of /'\ lerton's final years and, in particular, his final epic poem The Notes and References Ceograpl!J of l .ograirt. Underneath /'\ lerton's developing universal vision in this volume there lies I. William Shannon, Si/tnl Lamp: Tm Thomo.s Merton Story (New Yodc Ccosscoad, a new stability nnd simplicity which will mark 1\lerton's final years. Early on in the 1992) p.152 2. .Michad Mott, The Sti)tn M011ntoin.r oJThomas Merion (London, Shddon Press 1986) journal he writes: p.270 3. TheMmonAnnuo/Vol 9, 1996, p.315 Sat in the cool woods, bare feet in the wet grass, and my quails 4. TI1omas Merton, ThtSchooloJChori!J, ed. Patrick H:ut OCSO (New York: Faaar, whirling near me for my comfort, and wrote a poem about a Straus & Giroux, 1990) p.53 flower. (16) 5. Tite earliest entries in OJnjectum date from 1956 and so cover Merton's 1959 crisis of stability. Over the course of this journal Merton frequently refers to nature and his surroundings with a simplicity not present in earlier joumnls. There is a sense of O ther references - nllillbers iu brackets - refer to pages in the two books under review. wholeness and unity and central to this is the extra time Merton is allowed to spend in solitude at the hermitage. There are many passages which I could quote to Paul l\i Pearson illustrate this but one will have to suffice. In a passage in which Merton combines his natural surroundings and the solitude of the hermitage to give a sense of having, at last, found a home he writes: Peter France, Hermits, The Insights of Solitude (Chatto & Windus, 1996 h/ b £16.99 ISBN: 7011 -6296-1) (Pimlico, August 1997 p/ b £10 ISBN: 07126 Lit candles in the dusk. Hou req11iu meo in soeml11m soemli - tl1e 7363 6) sense of a journey ended, of wandering at an end. The firs/ time in my life I ever really felt I had come home and that my waiting Peter France has written a delightful book. Anyone familiar with his work fo r the and looking were ended. A burst of sun through the window. BBC (Kalaidoscope, Everyman etc.) will not be surprised to discover that it is Wind in the pines. Fire in tlle grate. Silence over the whole elegantly written, ilioroughly researched and very readable. It should appeal both valley. (19/80) to people who are encountering the hermits described for the first time and to those to whom they are old friends. In passages such as this Merton's talent for prose poetry leads the reader into In the limits of eight main chapters we can only examine a few lives (one stillness. The hermitage was a sacred space for Merton and, through the new sense can only applaud Peter France's decision to concentrated on a few "case histories" of solitude he discovered in it, he gained a new unity and stability from which he and go into quite a lot of detail). TI1e hermits chosen are mainly, but not could reach out to the whole world. exclusively, Christian monastics and are generally familiar - though there is a Simplicity, mercy, stability and compassion all feature strongly in this delightful "excursion" to visit some of the ornamental hermits of the 18th century! journal It is the most readable of the journals published so far and lacks some of His selection does not include any Celts o r women, and his only cepresentntive o f the convoluted arguments o f earlier volumes which made them much harder a relatively modern non-Christian trndirion is Ramakrishna. reading tllan this volume. /'\Ierton's writing in iliis volume has a new clarity and ye t, We start with the development of ideas about the individual nnd society he is frequently dealing with mo re profound issues than previously. b y G reek philosophers which were to have so much influence o f subsequent European monastic and ecemitical theory and practice. France's chapter on the dese rt fathers inevitably covers well worn territory, but I would not hesitate to recommend it as a good introduction to the

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